3/18/09 - 3/31/09: Broken Promises

I keep promising that I'll do better with keeping up my blog, but in reality the opposite has happened. I think I'm further behind than I've ever been since starting this thing. This is due mainly to two reasons: One-I'm on the computer all day for work; designing presentations, writing facilitator guides, participant guides, certification tests and study guides so two-last thing I want to do when I get done is write more!! So I end up putting it off and putting it off and before I know it I'm 2 WEEKS behind.

A New Promise

I can't promise that I'll make an entry every day. I can, however promise that I have no plans to give up and will make an effort to add an entry at least once a week if not more often. Although, I'll still try to make entries everyday when possible.

So...what's happened the last couple of weeks. Nothing too exciting, I talked to my brother on the phone, did some laundry at the laundromat, at a Glen's Diner, Drove up to Illinois Beach State Park (saw some deer ) and drove by this recreation of pyramids of Giza that some guy built, supposedly it is haunted or vexed or something. People claim they feel weird when looking on the grounds, but I didn't really feel anything peculiar. I made my neighbor a Birthday Cookie in the Shape of an Artist's Pallet because A. she doesn't like cake and B. she's an art teacher. David also made her a display with Balloon shaped cookies as well. We had a poker night at our house and I discovered I'm definitely in the right profession. There was a girl there that didn't know how to play and myself and my friend Laura taught her how step-by-step. It was actually just as fun to me teaching her how to play as it to actually play and rewarding to see her understand it and get excited because she understood it. It was cool. Let's see...what else, I think I went grocery shopping once or twice as well among other things I didn't get pictures of. Here are some pictures of the things (other than work) I've been up to recently (as mentioned) though I can't remember which days they all happened:

3/17/09 - The Real St. Patty's Day!! Missing Pictures?

Happy St. Patricks Day everyone! Today was another work-packed day. Lots of projects going on so I'm keeping pretty busy these days. Later on tonight David, Marcus and I are going to dinner at Glen's Diner...I told you I'd be going there frequently now, didn't I!!! Anyway, Tuesday is all you can eat Crab Legs for $30. I ordered Chicken. The crab legs are good, but I just can't order a whole plate for myself. It's not because I don't like the taste, I actually do like it, but I don't like having to pry open my food. Tear the skin off and crack the knees open of my dinner. It just seems overly cruel to me. Just ask my friend Andrea, who cracked open all my craw fish for me at her wedding in Louisiana. I can't even eat shrimp that haven't already been removed from their shell either. I don't know, it's a quirk I guess. Let someone else do the ripping and shredding and desecrating of the pour (insert name of: meat, chicken, seafood, etc. here) and I'll just enjoy the taste. It's also not because I'm lazy or even grossed out by it, well maybe a little grossed out, I just feel bad for the little guys/gals. Guess I should feel bad about eating them too, but I don't for some reason?? Hummmm. Interesting.

~Kelli

By the way if you're wondering where all the picutres are? I've misplaced the attachment that I put my memory card into that inserts into my computer so I can download the pictures so I have them on my camara, bu no way to get them to the blog at this moment. I know it's around here somewhere so as soon as I find it - the pictures will be back. I promise.

3/16/09 - Dinner w/the Neighbors

Monday night is wing night at the Rail. Well most of time. This Monday it was and we went with our downstairs neighbors, Katherine and Rich. Their turn to buy, Yay!! :) We had a good time, just eating and chatting, etc.

3/15/09 - Cleaning, Brewing and Work

Today was cleaning day! I cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, and the bedroom, Whew! David's friend Erick came over around 2pm as they are brewing beer again. They've entered a local brewing contest so I hope it turns out well for them. While they were brewing, I was working. I know...boring, but I wanted get a jump start on a project I'm working on because I'm out of pocket all day Monday for a training session.

3/14/09 - Chicago Celebrates St. Patty's Day

Today, Chicago had it's North Side St. Patty's Day parade and the dying of the Chicago River green. I have yet to experience this phenomenon, though I'm not too upset about it. Why? Well, A. I'm not particularly fond of large crowds and I'm especially not fond of large crowds fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, though I suppose it's something I should expereince at some point during my time here. Maybe next year.
Instead of participating in the St. Patty's Day festivities, David and I got Massages. Our friend gave us gift certificates for Chirstmas/Birthday so we finally used them and it was good! David's guy, but was better than mine, but I still enjoyed it. He didn't suck, just didn't do as much as David's guy did. I still felt pretty good afterward. After that, David and I grabbed some lunch at Glen's Diner. This diner is right up the street from our house and has been featured on "Diners, Drive-in's, and Dive's" on the Food Network. It was pretty darn good. I'm sure we'll be going there quite frequently now. After that we went to Ravenswood Art Center. It's a community art school that was having an open house. We wandered around and looked at the art and projects and looked into signing up for some classes, so we'll see what happens.


Later, we went over to our friend Chris's house for some corned-beef and cabbage in celebration of the sudo holiday. I wore green, but felt defiant since it wasn't technically the 17th! Oh well. It was a packed, but fun and relaxing day!

3/13/09 - Girls Night @ Denese's

As you can see I had a pretty busy week of work-related events so I was really looking forward to this night. A few of the girls got together at Denese's house for a good meal and conversation. Denese has been in/out of town on business so it was great to be able to catch up with her and get to know some of the others that were there a little better as well. We shared some laughs, some tears, some ideas, some advice - your typical girls night out kind of stuff, well besides the naked pillow fight of course! ;)



~Kelli

3/12/09 - Work, work, work...

Another busy day of work! and that's about it. Sorry...nothing too exciting happening this week.

3/11/09 - Work, work, work...

Not much happended today, just a bunch of work! So pretty boring... How do you take a picture of boring? :)

3/10/09- Finally caught up

I've updated all the entries from 2/26/09 to now. I don't have much going on tonight. I'm going to make some Salmon for dinner because David is going to an All-You-Can-Eat Crab Legs MiC Event. I'll post a picutre later if I see some thing worth sharing :)

3/09/09 - Blog Slacking....Sorry

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic and as a result I've fallen behind on my what's suppose to be my "daily" blog. Aside from today, my last entry was 2/26/09 so my plan this morning is get caught up. I'm starting with today and back tracking so if you happen to begin reading early this morning you'll see some empty entries. I titled each day so I could post them in the right chronilogical order, but havn't filled in all the details yet so if you come back later this afternoon they should all be updated. I should say that I did actually try to get caught up a couple times over the last couple of weeks and I don't know if it's my computer or the site or what, but I couldn't not get blogger to work. Either it wouldn't save my posts or it wouldn't upload the photos or both. It was so frustrating that I eventually gave up and planned to come to it later, but of course you know how that goes sometimes...
Anyway, happy Monday everyone! Have a good week and I'll try to stay more on top of my blog, though I'm not promising anything :)

3/08/09 - Recovery/Chicago Wolves Hockey

Tonight we went to a Chicago Wolves Hockey game. This is Chicago's Farm team or Minor league team (I guess you'd say) I'm sure it has a more poper term, but I can't remember it at the moment. It was a pretty good game, though we lost 3 to 2. Oh well.

3/07/09 - CHIDITEROD 2009

How do you explain Chiditerod?

Basically, it's a charity food drive, a race and a pub crawl all in one, that is loosely based on the Iditerod, the catch... A shopping cart is your "sled" and people are the "dogs". Not only that, but you have to come up with a theme, then decorate your cart and wear corresponding costumes. There is a starting line, in which everyone lines up in order, from there you follow a map to various bars to "water your dogs", you must remain at each bar for a set amount of time before proceeding to the next bar. Ultimately for the extremely competitive, your goal is to be the first team across the finish line with the most donations. For others, the goal is to be the last team across and for others still it's to get as drunk as you possibly can and still make it to the finish line in any order. I should mention that there is also a third element to winning and that is sabotage. There is a prize for best sabotage of a cart or team so you have to watch your cart very carefully so other teams don't try to steal it or break it in some way, forcing you out of the race.

Our team? Team: Buddy Christ from the movie Dogma as listed in a previous blog. We came in fairly close to last. I think we might have been the 3rd to last team, but our goal was to just have a good time, which we did, but it rained the entire day putting a slight damper on things.

I have to admit, I was a little concerned about our costume idea at first. I liked it, but thought that people who haven't seen that movie might not understand why we were all dressed up like Christ and be offended. I'm sure some people (passers by) were, although everyone that participated in the race seemed to get it. I wasn't worried at all until about the 2nd stop when another team of "Slasher Movie Characters (or something) sprayed fake blood all over us. That just didn't look good. Fortunately the rain washed most of it out and it just looked like pink punch stains or something. I posted most of the photos I took on Facebook, but here are a few from that day!

3/06/09 - Chidterod Eve - Final costume touches

Tonight, I finalized the costumes and then gave myself a much needed pedicure, ordered take out and relaxed. All in all it was a good night. My sewing machine kept getting jammed, well the thread in my machine anyway so that was a little frustrating, but I finally figured out what was causing it, fixed it and was back in business.

3/05/09 - Even more work and more sewing

More Sewing - 3 costumes down, 2 to go!

3/04/09 - Happy Birthday Karen

Today is my friend Karen's B-Day. Unfortunately, she was taking off the next day for New York to go to a family funeral, the third to happen on or near her birthday. We wanted to send her off with a somewhat good memory of her birthday so I made her cupcakes decroated like turtles (she likes turtles) and we took her out to dinner at El Llano. It was a small, short, but sweet celebration.

3/03/09 - REJECTED

My car, "Armand", has been rejected by the State of Illinois Air Team for Emission test. Man! I swear I'm going to just drive him off a cliff and report him stolen!! He's a pain in my butt lately. I like having him around he's actually a good car (the reason he was rejected was because I just had the batter replaced and I guess I didn't drive it long enough first before having it tested) The problem is I hardly ever drive him and as a result he gets grumpy and doesn't to work. He belongs with someone who will take him out for walks, and clean him reguluarly and call him nice names :) :)

Anyone want to buy a 2002 VW Passat, named Armand?

• Charcoal Gray


• 39,000 Miles


• Leather


• Heated Seats (perect for Chicago winters)


• Sun Roof


• Power Locks


• Nearly new tires


• New battery


• Great Condition (a few minor scrapes on back bumper from people who don't know how to paralell park in Chicago)

Kelly Blue Book lists it at $10,100

My Starting Bid $9,500

I'm serious, if you know of someone that might be interested let me know. I'll of course get it passed and all that stuff first...

3/02/09 - Work/Sewing Costumes

I spent most of today working on the Site Administrator Assessment for what will soon be Marriott's new place for document sharing and team collaboration. After work, I began sewing together our costumes for the Chiditerod race this Saturday. I need 5 robes and sashes by then. My goal is to finish 1 to 1-1/2 a night. That way I'll be sure to have them all done by Saturday.

I'm not the greatest seamstress, but they don't need to perfect so I'm basically just winging it. No pattern or anything. One size fits all (except length) so should be pretty easy. Now if I could just figure out a quicker way to get the thread on the bobbin, I'll be in good shape! I found instructions on how get from the bobbin back to the spool, but not the other way around. There's got to be way, but for now - I'm winding up by hand!!

3/01/09 - Chiditerod Decorating Party

Today we all went over to our friend Lizz's house for a few hours and decorated our carts for Chiditerod. Here are some photos of the cart-in-progress.